Golden Boy

T H I R T Y - T H R E E

Dayna was the first to take action, throwing a kitchen knife at Maggie's head, which she expertly dodged. Jace took a step forward to Maggie, who grinned wildly. 

"Is that how you welcome all of your guests?" Maggie tsked, yanking the knife out of the wall where it embedded a couple of inches from her head. She admired the length of it, swiping her fingers along the edge. She made a show of disintegrating it into a pile of ashes—something that she was probably looking forward to doing to us too. 

"Maggie, why are you here?" Jace asked, moving forward, and doing his best of shielding me. Her eyes landed on me standing past him, and she smiled, waving as if I had just shown up at her birthday party. 

"I went all the way to that wretched town you call home to negotiate a deal, but to my surprise, you never answered the door. Luckily, I was able to get in, but the visit proved to be a waste of time since I didn't get what I had gone for. Thankfully, I remembered that you told me about the cute little house you were raised in on Long Island."

Jace shook his head, appalled. "You would really stoop as low as coming to my grandma's house?"

"To get what I need, yes. I came prepared to leave on top, but if you cooperate, we can get this done without anyone getting hurt."

Jace looked to Bev who nodded. Dayna stood in the middle, her focus not shifting away from Maggie. She looked pissed and like she was ready to open up the gates to hell. Her grip on the bat turned her fingers white, the only sign that she was ready to pounce. 

Jace took a step forward, dragging Maggie's attention back to him. "What exactly is it that you want? Money, the painting, or me?" 

A deep, hearty laugh escaped her lips. "Do you really think I'm doing this to get you back because I'm jealous of a worthless piece of trash from upstate New York? Honey, there's a lot for you to learn still." She stopped laughing and composed herself, her features showing a hard exterior. "What did you do with the painting?"

"It's gone."

"What do you mean it's gone? Where did it go?"

"Far away from here. I believe it's somewhere overseas by now."

"I don't believe you," she said, taking a couple of steps further into the house. "Why would you do that?"

"Because I had a feeling someone would come looking for it. I just never thought it would have been you." 

"Well you know the saying, keep your friends close..."

"But keep your enemies closer," said Jace, finishing the infamous line. They stayed still, starring into the eyes of each other. One pair seemingly hurt and the other indifferent. I wanted to reach out to hold Jace, but I knew by doing so it would drag Maggie's attention back to me and I was likely to come out of this alive if I avoided that. So I bit back my urge to provide comfort and support and tried to come up with a plan that would result in me not getting kidnapped like last time. 

So far all I came up with was to run and hide. Not much, but it'll have to do for now. 

I took a slow step back, making sure to not make any sudden movements. Jace turned to Bev, who took that as a sign to rain his attack onto Maggie. A rainbow burst of power left Bev's hands en route to Maggie, who deflected it with her own burst of energy, but hers was a plain silver color. 

The magical element of this fight had begun, and I took that as a sign to get the fuck out of here, so I turned to run back into the kitchen. Two steps away, and it felt like something sharp and as cold as ice pierced my skin. I dropped onto my stomach, every limb going numb as I became paralyzed.